Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Dick Gregory

American Contemporary Comedian, Civil Rights Activist and Nutritional Consultant

"There are two kinds of crimes: those committed by people who are caught and convicted, and those committed by people who are not. Which category a particular crime falls into is directly related to the wealth, power, and prestige of the criminal. The former category includes such crimes as purse snatching, mugging, armed robbery and breaking and entering. The latter category includes war atrocities, embezzlement, most political actions, and budget appropriations."

"Love is man's natural endowment, but he doesn't know how to use it. He refuses to recognize the power of love because of his love of power."

"There are two major kinds of promises in politics: the promises made by candidates to the voters and the promises made by the candidates to persons and groups able to deliver the vote. Promises falling into the latter category are loosely called “patronage,” and promises falling into the former category are most frequently called “lies.”"

"Poor is a state of mind you never grow out of, but being broks is just a temporary condition."

"Just being a Negro doesn't qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine."

"The number-one thing young people in American - indeed, young people around the world - have going for them is their sense of honesty, morality, and ethics. Young people refuse to accept the lies and rationalizations of the established order."

"Riches do not delight us so much with their possession, as torment us with their loss."

"And we love to dance, especially that new one called the Civil War Twist. The Northern part of you stands still while the Southern part tries to secede."

"Being white is a job in America. You take that away, you better get the soldiers out."

"Coconut milk is the only thing on this planet that comes identically to mother's milk."

"Dear Momma―Wherever you are, if ever you hear the word "nigger" again, remember they are advertising my book."

"Every holiday on the calendar, I check in a hotel and fast - I don't eat, I don't drink, I don't talk."

"Everything we do we should look at in terms of millions of people who can't afford it."

"Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned."

"I never thought I'd see the day that I would see white folks as frightened, or more so, than black folks was during the civil rights movement when we was in Mississippi."

"I buy about $1,500 worth of papers every month. Not that I trust them. I'm looking for the crack in the fabric."

"I personally believe breathatarianism to be the highest mode of human living [...] breathing in pure air, absorbing the direct light and energies of the sun, bathing in pure water [...] I look at the obituaries every morning and ain't nobody listed but you eaters."

"I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man."

"I used to get letters saying, 'I didn't know black children and white children were the same.'"

"I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark."

"I never learned hate at home or shame. I had to go to school for that."

"I tell people, 'If you want to send a message to the White House, call my house.'"

"I waited at the counter of a white restaurant for eleven years. When they finally integrated, they didn't have what I wanted."

"I went to Ethiopia, and it dawned on me that you can tell a starving, malnourished person because they've got a bloated belly and a bald head. And I realized that if you come through any American airport and see businessmen running through with bloated bellies and bald heads, that's malnutrition, too."

"I'm not a comic. I'm a humorist."

"If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they'd have to bring out the tanks to control you."

"Improve memory with scientifically designed brain exercises."

"In America, with all of its evils and faults, you can still reach through the forest and see the sun. But we don't know yet whether that sun is rising or setting for our country."

"I wouldn't mind paying taxes - if I knew they were going to a friendly country."

"If it wasn't for Abe Lincoln, I'd still be on the open market."

"In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport."

"If you take 12 waters from the coconut - not the ones you buy in the store, although that's good - but the fresh coconuts, the little brown ones with the three eyes, if you take 12 of those within 24 hours, your blood will go back to the way it was when you were born."

"It was an unwritten law that black comics were not permitted to work white nightclubs. You could sing and you could dance, but you couldn't stand flat-footed and talk; that was a no-no."

"It's cool to be healthy."

"Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken."

"Let me tell you, never before in the history of this planet has anybody made the progress that African-Americans have made in a 30-year period, in spite of many black folks and white folks lying to one another."

"Love is very dangerous if you just have love and don't have the ability to be lovable."

"Momma, a welfare cheater. A criminal who couldn't stand to se her kids go hungry, or grow up in slumbs and end up mugging people in dar corners. I guess the system didn't want her to get off relief, the way it kept sending social workers around to be sure Momma wasn't trying to make things better."

"My belief is, you know, certain things have to be explained that's never been explained."

"Now here's what I'm saying: I've always believed that every other month we hear about compromisation of bank records, I think that's the CIA and the FBI. Now let me tell you why I'm saying this. I don't believe no insignificant pip-squeak is going to be able to pull this off month after month and we can't find out what's going on."

"One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people."

"No kid in the world, no woman in the world should ever raise a hand against a no-good daddy. That's already been taken care of: A Man Who Destroys His Own Home Shall Inherit the Wind."

"Once I realized the value of making people laugh, I got very good at it. Fast."

"Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten."

"There is a limit on how much information you can keep bottled up."

"People with high blood pressure, diabetes - those are conditions brought about by life style. If you change the life style, those conditions will leave."

"There's a God force inside of you that gives you a will to live."

"The only good thing about the good old days is they're gone."

"To me, seeing a really great comedian is a bit like watching a musician or a poet."

"We thought I was going to be a great athlete, and we were wrong, and I thought I was going to be a great entertainer, and that wasn't it either. I'm going to be an American Citizen. First class."